Schraft earns 1A runner-up trophy all on her own

First place: Danville.

Second place: Janette Schraft.

Third place: South Winneshiek.

Janette Schraft?

The East Mills junior, didn’t accomplish her goal of winning four gold medals at the Iowa State Track and Field Championships this weekend – she won three – but she did achieve something perhaps just as impressive.
Schraft placed second. As a team. All by herself.

The Wolverines’ lone state competitor won the 400-meter hurdles, the 800-meters and the 1,500-meter and added a runner up finish in the 3,000-meters to score 38 points. Her tally trailed only Class 1A state champion Danville when all was said and done on a stormy Saturday evening at Drake Stadium in Des Moines.

Schraft’s runner up trophy wasn’t decided until the very last race when South Winneshiek, who needed to place fourth or better in the 4x400-meter relay, finished fifth to give East Mills a one point edge in the final standings.

“When they got fifth and I realized we were second, I was absolutely bawling,” she said. “I was crying. It was such an intense feeling.”

Schraft said going up to accept the team trophy all by herself was more nerve wracking than any race she ran at state.

“I was incredibly nervous,” she said. “There were all those huge teams getting their trophies and even the 1A squads were pretty big. The lady asked for East Mills and looked around me and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s me.’ And I got the trophy.”

The opening day at state didn’t go the way Schraft hoped. After winning the 3,000-meters as a freshman and sophomore, she saw her reign come to an end to a familiar foe. Bedford freshman Emma Lucas ran a 10:04.31 to edge Schraft’s 10:10.97 for gold.

But Schraft was hardly deterred by the upset or her time. Her 10:10 was second fastest among all classes in the 3,000-meters and a 14 second improvement on her personal best.

“It was a really tough field and even though I was the runner it up it did sort of feel good to know I would have been first in any other class,” she said. “It goes to show class size doesn’t always matter.”

On Friday she came back to run a 1:03.13 in the 400-meter hurdles to win her first gold medal of the meet against an equally impressive field.

And it was perhaps the most impressive – and shocking – of her gold medal runs. She only took up the hurdles in mid-April. She had not run the event competitively since the seventh grade and only then as a fill-in.

She capped her state meet with a gold in the 1,500 and 800 on Saturday afternoon.

East Mills coach Kevin Schafer said he’d seen teams with just two or three qualifiers win a top three trophy at state but never a team of just one. Seeing Schraft accept the team runner up trophy and post for official photos made the coach smile.

“You see all these teams go up with all these girls and then there’s her all by herself and it definitely looked kind of funny,” he said.

But, the coach said, that runner up trophy is testament to a competitor that’s as self-motivated as any he’s coached.

“Her goal was to break 1:03 (in the hurdles) and I think she would have done 1:02-something if she hadn’t have stumbled over one of the hurdles,” Schafer said. “And her last three races? They were just fabulous races and she knew she’d have to be very competitive with the Lucas girl in both of them but she showed she’s the better 1,500 and 800 meter run right now. She sets a goal and she goes and gets it.”

The Fremont-Mills girls finished with four points thanks to Bailey Hauschild’s fifth place finish in the Class 1A high jump.

The Knights’ Sophie Phillips placed 11th and 16th in the discus and the shot, respectively.

Clara Schaaf earned a 15th place finish in the 100-meter hurdles and helped the shuttle hurdle relay team of Lydia Alley, McKayla Gartner and Hauschild to a 16th place finish.

On the boys side, East Mills’ Dylan Schroeder placed 12th in the long jump and Fremont-Mills’ Connor Alley was 14th in the shot put.

Fremont-Mills Girls Place Winners
Shuttle hurdle relay – 16th place, Fremont-Mills (Lydia Alley, McKayla Gartner, Clara Schaaf and Bailey Hauschild), 1:11.63.
Shot put – 16th place, Sophie Phillips, 35’ 3.5”.
Long jump – did not place, Schaaf.
High jump – fifth place, Hauschild, 5’ 1”.
100m hurdles – 15th place, Schaaf, 16.89.
400m hurdles – 22nd place, Schaaf, 1:13.47.
Discus – 11th place, Phillips, 113’ 1”; 20th place, Kendra Fichter, 98’ 5”.

East Mill Girls Place Winners
3000m run – second place, Janette Schraft, 10:10.97.
400m hurdles – first place, Schraft, 1:03.13.
800m run – first place, Schraft, 2:14.98.
1500m run – first place, Schraft, 4:42.24.

East Mills Boys Place Winners
Long jump – 12th place, Dylan Schroeder, 19’ 10.5”.

Fremont-Mills Boys Place Winners
Shot put – 14th place, Connor Alley, 46’ 5.25”.
400m hurdles – did not place, James Switzer.